Agents of SHIELD Season 3 Episode 18
The plot of this week’s episode of Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD is very simple. A bunch of very loyal comrades try to save Daisy from Hive, and get really fucked up doing so. It makes one realize that Daisy is a very popular lady within SHIELD because just about every character goes through hell to free the quake causing Inhuman agent. And they all fail. So a couple of extras from Guardians of the Galaxy come down to Earth and don’t appreciate the summons and start going after Hive’s men- and Hive himself. But let’s back up here because this week’s episode also reveals the origin of Hive. You see, long ago the being that would become Hive was a simple native in what looked like Mesoamerica. The Kree came down and turned the poor guy into one of the first Inhumans- Hive. That poor indigenous hunter guy is still in Ward Hive and has a mad on for all things Kree. So Hive gets quite the catharsis this week as he kicks some Kree warrior ass black and bluer in order to get the blood he needs for his experiments. And I’ve said it before, when Agents of SHIELD connects to the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, magic happens. There is some Guardians of the Galaxy DNA in this week’s episode as the Kree gives the show a vibe of importance. There is something bigger going on than the constant HYDRA versus SHIELD chess game, something that touches pieces of the grander MU. I dig that. I dig that synergy. I dig that even a film that is universally, both literally and tonally, separated from Agents of SHIELD like Guardians can still have an impact on the lives of our agents. Mack tries a different tactic and goes off mission to beg Daisy to resist Hive. Daisy kicks his every loving ass and almost kills her would be savior. Only the timely intervention of May saves Mack, but Daisy is still in thrall to Hive. But the question is- is this Daisy in control? Is she sick of being SHIELD’s pawn, a toy soldier in a game that has cost her the lives of her friends? Is she just like Hive, an experiment of a heartless group of experimenters trying to bend her to their will? That’s the conflict in Daisy’s mind, but in reality, we can see by the love of Lincoln and Mack, that is just not the case. The origin of Hive is pretty intense as it makes it seem like he was once a victim of the Krees’ genetic tampering. This certainly adheres with the Kree fans know form the comics, as since their introduction so long ago, other than a few heroic examples, the Kree have always been portrayed as arrogant, imperialistic, cosmic puppet masters. The Kree seen in Guardians of the Galaxy were kind of alien cannon fodder, so this is a welcome connection to Marvel comic history. This is a fun episode but it kind of plods along at times with the same beats being hit over and over again. Other than Mack and Lincoln, we don’t get much play with the other agents this week. May kicks that newly created Aussie Inhuman thief guy’s butt, which is fun, but this episode narrowly focuses on Daisy and the quest to bring her back to the side of the angels. But as we are left with Daisy offering her blood to Hive, that just seems more impossible than ever. Marvel moments The episode provides a mention of a man in iron armor clashing with a super solder in a kind of premonition of the Civil War (Friday, ya’ll!) It’s about time Civil War was alluded to on Agents of SHIELD. We haven’t gotten much going into the epic conflict, but I best see some fallout on Marvel TV. One of the SHIELD agents that accompanied Mack and May to take out Hive is named O’Brien. Could he be Michael or Kevin O’Brien, the two brothers who in the comics took on the identity of the armored Guardsman? Both Guardsmen have a history with SHIELD both before and after they donned their armor. Guardsman has always been used as a kind of prison guard to super villains and has played second fiddle in books like Iron Man for years. Am I stretching here? Probably, but I love to take any opportunity to show off my nerd-fu.
